Evangelion: You CAN Redo
by warpdriveactive
Summary: One simple wish that changes everything. One simple wish that sets things right. No EVA's, no depression, more friends, and just a little bit of magic. Based on "Alternate Reality" from NGE 25.
1. Chapter 1 - A Wish

Chapter 1: A wish

The blood-red waves kept on hammering away at the sandy coastline of the completely ruined city of Tokyo-3. What looked like a magnificent, modern metropolis dotted with high-tech skyscrapers now resembled a sorry mess of metal, tar and half-dried blood. The eerie night sky was dotted with gruesome maimed silhouettes of gigantic man-like figures, which seemed to be frozen with their arms spread, as if crucified on huge, invisible crosses.

Two more figures were lying down on the beach right next to where the blood-colored waves met the yellow sand. However, they could not be called large by any standard. One of the figures was tightly wrapped in the remains of a latex red suit, with the thin rubber on one of the arms replaced by loose, dirty bandages. Red hair spread outwards from the small silhouette's head, resembling innards strewn out from a gunshot wound.

The second was clad in a torn white shirt, now stained with a wild mix of cream yellow and blood red. His tattered pants now more resembled a pair of shorts and clung to the figure's legs, wet and dirty. At first glance, one could think that the two shapes were sharing a kiss or an embrace, that was how tightly they were clinging to each other. That impression could not be further from the truth: the white-clad shape had its arms around the red shape's neck, in an apparent attempt at strangulation.

Some time has passed before the two separated, the white shape, who was a dark-haired boy relaxed and slumped down next to the red one, who was a girl with what looked like horrific injuries hidden underneath bandages on one of her eyes; her right arm and left leg were covered in gauze as well.

The girl spent the next minute and a half coughing softly and rubbing her throat, while the boy curled up and started to sob.

"You really _are_ pathetic", - the redhead's voice was dull and emotionless, - "Can't even finish off a half-dead girl. Can't say I'm surprised."

The boy remained quiet, his body shaking. Perhaps, he was trembling in anger at the girl's words. Perhaps, shaking in fear of this red-haired monster that kept on patronizing him wherever he went in Tokyo-3. Or perhaps, it was just his silent sobbing was getting stronger.

The thin red-clad figure slowly got up on her feet and looked around dejectedly.

"We're in hell, aren't we", - with a soft limp, the girl made a couple of strides towards the red waves, which were still licking the sandy coast monotonously. – "God, this _is_ hell, and you are still such a _pussy_."

She came close to screaming the last few words out, and immediately fell into a coughing fit. Clearly, her throat had not yet recovered from the recent assault.

"You make it hell wherever you go, Asuka", – the boy's voice was now the same as his companion's has been earlier: monotone and emotionless. The voice of someone who had given up on everything.

Surprisingly, the girl did not get even the least bit visibly offended. Instead, the look the boy got was the look of a teacher looking at his worst student, the look that screams " _wow, you are so stupid_ ".

"Yeah, cool story. In _that_ case, I'd like to make this place hell somewhere private, without you". – her voice was now muffled by the sudden gust of wind. The girl turned around and began to limp away towards the ruined mess of what was some time ago a bustling city. Her body shook with every stride she made – it was obvious that every bit of weight the bandaged teenager put on her bad leg tore through her body like a knife.

"If we are dead, how come your body still hurts so much?" – the male figure questioned nobody in particular, as the girl was now out of his sight, and judging from the lack of an answer – out of earshot as well.

 ** _THUMP_**

As soon as the thought escaped his mouth, pain of his own – dull and heavy – ripped through his head. A blinding light poured down from the sky above, as if someone lit several dozen projectors straight into his face.

"What do you want, Ikari Shinji?"

That was a voice the boy was not expecting to hear any time soon.

"Rei?!" – Shinji tried to turn his head towards the source of the gentle voice, but as soon as he made any attempt to move, the pain would cripple his movement and stop his feeble efforts straight away.

Finally, after giving up on trying to move at all, the boy seemed to catch a glimpse of where the girl speaking to him was – right above. If the pain piercing his brain was not as strong, he probably would have found it odd to see her float in a blinding ray of light.

"What do you want, Ikari-kun?"

* * *

She could finally think. No more NERV drugs, no more memory lapses, she could finally remember. Remember the thousands, or perhaps, millions, of times she had seen the boy lying down on the sand, shirt torn, pants shredded. All the empty lifetimes of existing, surviving as a NERV pet that she had endured were worth this feeling of freedom.

But something was different this time around. Impact after impact, the light would fall on two figures on the beach. But this time there was only one. For the first time in millions of years, something was different.

In her head, Rei called the duality of the different timelines the mother/father cycles. Every time the impact would occur, Shinji's wishes would boil down to the same thing – bringing his missing parent back to life. In the cycle that had just finished – his mother was the one fused with the EVA, so, naturally, his wish should be " _I wish my mother was still alive_ ", as opposed to the previous cycle's " _I wish my father was still alive_ ", and so in the next cycle, his father would be the one trapped inside the purple monstrosity, and his mother would go on to become the ruthless head of the NERV agency, who Shinji would come to resent for abandoning him and summoning back only when the need for an EVA pilot arose.

But this time, there were differences. To the blue-haired girl floating inside the warm stream of bright light, everything was obvious now. Like a butterfly effect, one tiniest thing led to another, and another, and another, which would, in time, grow into a raging storm, taking events away from the normal timeline.

Rei could not, for the life of her, figure out why exactly this has happened. After so many times of time going in circles, nothing would change. Did something go awry last cycle? Or perhaps was someone able to retain memories from his previous life? The girl was unsure.

"I"

The boy's voice was more resigned than usual. Cycle after cycle, he would nearly break into tears at the thought of his "deceased" parent. But now, his voice was just… Empty.

" _I wish none of this existed. No angels, no EVA. I wish it would all just... go away._ "

It was done. Those were the wishes that Unit-01 was supposed to grant the boy. But no angels meant…

"Very well, Ikari-kun. I don't know if I will, but", - the girl's voice grew fainter as she seemed to float up, as if pulled towards the heavens on invisible strings, "But I will be happy to see you again."

Suddenly, Shinji felt the full extent of his injuries. His limbs, which just a second ago, felt almost weightless, now felt like they were getting squashed under enormous weights. His headache grew stronger, and his eyelids felt like the heaviest things on earth. Just a couple more seconds, and he will pass out.

" _Rei… Asu…_ "

* * *

"Let's go, doofus. Time to get up!"

Shinji's head hurt like hell. Just what time did he stay up last night until?

"Ugh, just five more minutes, Asuka.."

The brown-haired boy curled up on his bed and tried to protect himself with the covers. Deep down though, he knew that there was no escape from his childhood friend.

"Don't make me hurt you, idiot!" – The girl, who was dressed in her school's uniform of a blue skirt and white shirt, checked her wristwatch. If they did not leave right now, there would be hell to pay in class for being late for the first day of school. Fuming at how lazy the boy was acting, she decided it was time for drastic measures and reached down for the wooden edges of the western-style bed.

"Wha- ", - was all Shinji managed to squeak out as the bedding underneath him gave way and his backside made contact with the hard floor. Just how strong was this girl?

"And _please,_ put some pants on!" – Asuka contorted her face in a sour expression and thrust out her arms in a rhetorical effort to shield herself from what could not be unseen.

"Alright, alright! Just give me some privacy here!" – the boy realized dejectedly that he was probably not going to get out of this one, and that he would rather get dressed _before_ he met the same fate as his bed.

"Goodbye, Mr Ikari, we're leaving now!" – putting on her sweetest voice, Asuka shouted into the kitchen, where Shinji's father, head propped on hand, was slowly gulping down half-cold coffee from a white cup with a NERV logo. "And put some pants on, too! Jeez, this family! How indecent, especially when a girl is visiting!"

"H-hey, you can't scream at my dad like that, Asuka! And it's just creepy when you put on a voice like that."

"Yeah, and you cant flash me, moron, but you do it anyway!"

"It's not like i did it on purpose, Miss Home-Invader! Bye, Dad, see you later! Ow, don't pinch me, you red-haired brute!"

"What did you call me?! You should be thankful I woke you up in time!"

As the voices got softer and eventually drowned out in the sounds of the morning street, Gendo Ikari, who _thought_ he was fully dressed for work, glanced at his underwear. That's what he was forgetting!

"Give it your all, kids" – he muttered to nobody in particular and lazily dialed a number on his cellphone.

"Morning, Fuyutsuki" – the call was picked up on the other end in a matter of seconds, - "Yes, would you mind bringing me some spare pants?"

Upon hearing the reply, Gendo's face contorted into a grimace of worry and anger.

"What do you mean, you already left home?! Damnit!"

The head of NERV slowly sank back down into his chair and sighed.

"Maybe I should just stay home today."


	2. Chapter 2 - A Meeting

Chapter 2 – A Meeting

The weather was really starting to heat up the past few days, so the windows in the classroom of class 2-A of Tokyo's Naoko Akagi Memorial Middle School were wide open, wind gently paging through various notes and papers clipped to the board next to the teacher's desk. While the atmosphere on one side of the glass was peaceful and tranquil, commotion was afoot on the other.

"Just what is it with you all and flashing today?!" – an angry voice echoed out of the classroom into the empty hallways. Most other classes were already in session, but class 2-A's young homeroom teacher, Misato Katsuragi, was running late, which was in fact not an unusual occurrence at all. – "Is there some kind of obscene Japanese national holiday today that I don't know about?"

" _Hey Asuka, you're half-Japanese, mind half-flashing us then?"_

 _"Not if you value the integrity of the vertebrae in your neck, Aida."_

The catfight had begun to garner the attention of the rest of the twenty-something teenagers in the class. Almost every week now, a student would transfer in or out due to the situation Tokyo-3 was in. On the one hand, it was going to be made the new capital of Japan, making it a place of opportunity and increased government funding. A modern, innovative, high-tech city with the best and newest that science had to offer was an alluring prospect for many families. On the other hand, the whole situation with the Angel Cartel and the exposure it was receiving on national television was making other families reconsider the desired location of their homes long and hard.

By now, everyone was used to the head count of 2-A's population changing, just as they had gotten used to Asuka's Morning Outbursts ™. The class representative, Hikari Horaki, usually tried to keep a grip on such situations at first, but later learned that it was best to leave her friend to her rants. That was all part of her personal brand of communication.

"What's gotten up your backside? It was only an accident, how many times do I have to say it!"

The first voice belonged to an angry-looking Asuka, whose long auburn was tied back on the sides with a red silk ribbon, and her blue eyes glared angrily towards the front of the class. The object of her indignation was, unlike the rest of the girls in the class, dressed in a light grey skirt and a yellow sleeveless wool vest over her white blouse. Judging by her attire, it was more than likely that the girl was a new student, and for some reason has not obtained the usual Akagi uniform yet.

"And besides, what does this have to do with _you_? You're not the one I ran into." – Arms folded and eyes closed, the irate expression on her face betrayed the dislike she had started to harbor towards her red-haired adversary. A sudden realization made the transfer student widen her brown eyes and flip a bang of unnaturally-azure hair out of their way. "Unless!" – a mischievous smirk crept onto the bluenette's face.

"Unless what?!"

"Unless my unfortunate landing has just threatened _your_ monopoly on doing such lewd things to your boyfriend?" – arms folded behind her back, the new girl leaned forward into Asuka, still smirking.

Shinji, whose facial expression the whole time had been alternating between "Please, let this be over soon" and "I don't even know her, honest", jumped up and blurted out a "What?!" in unison with his childhood friend.

"I'll have you know that I don't have any monopoly on such things with _him_! And he is not my boyfriend!" – if Asuka's face could go any redder at this moment in time, she would probably spontaneously combust.

"Ah, so it's still an open relationship, then?" – the azure-haired newcomer was snickering at how much of a hole the other girl was digging for herself.

Asuka began to visibly shake as the explosive mixture of anger and jealousy travelled from her mind to her vocal chords. Just as she looked like she was about to unleash a tirade to end all tirades and opened her mouth to deliver the lines, the voice that was heard next did not come from the fuming redhead's lips.

"Soryu, I could hear you all the way from down the hall!" – the classroom wooden door slid open and slammed shut, ajar for just enough time to let a young woman, dressed in a red jacket and skirt that matched her dark purply-brown hair stumble inside. – "To your seats, now!" – she made an emphatic gesture with her arm, striking a pose that would make the saltiest sea captain proud, manicured finger pointed at nothing in particular.

"Aww, Mi – " – Asuka began, cutting herself off halfway. "Err, I mean, Miss Katsuragi. I was about to say something witty too." – the redhead sulked, taking a couple of steps towards her seat in the center of the class, and sinking down into the chair, arms folded. She looked away with a pout.

" _Darn it, Miss Katsuragi, you've just denied us the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear Asuka say something witty!_ "

" _Grrrraaaaa!_ "

" _I'm sorry, don't kill me!"_ – Kensuke Aida buried his head in his arms, partly in jest, partly in complete seriousness. Shinji could swear that he could almost see his German neighbor's eyes turn to the color of burning red as she roared in the general direction of his bespectacled friend.

"You can always write it down and carry on where you left off at recess. That's the beauty of youth, you know. Plenty of time to do whatever you want." – Turning from sea captain to philosopher, Miss Katsuragi breathed a bittersweet sigh brought on by the vague memories of her own school days. Her own sigh evoked a dozen others from the male population of 2-A, sighs that fit more into the "lovestruck sigh" category. Their homeroom teacher was a stunner: hourglass figure, long, slender legs, pretty face, long eyelashes, upper body in a blouse that could barely hold in her black bra and its contents – she was a walking compilation of every fourteen-year-old boy's fetishes, and possibly the only competition Asuka Langley Soryu had in the classroom in the looks department. While the class was already used to the fact that the foreign girl, who had been going to school with them for the past several years, turned into a gorgeous teenager basically in the space of one summer, the teacher was a different story, having only started working at the school during the previous semester.

Dozens of "annoyed sigh"s followed from the female half of the class.

" _Stupid boys, fawning over someone old enough to be their mother_ "

" _S-Shut up!_ "

"Oh yes, I almost forgot" – Misato snapped out of her trance, turning her attention back to Asuka's quarrel partner. "Rei Ayanami will be starting with us today."

* * *

No sooner had the recess bell rung that the noise levels in the class exploded, and the main bulk of the students stormed towards the door, the first stop on the journey to the cafeteria; waves of hungry teenagers nearly sweeping up the poor Miss Katsuragi on the way out.

Immediately, a small crowd had begun to form around Rei, most of the class had seemed to be intent on finding out as much as they could about the new girl. The rest split into their usual groups: Asuka, Hikari and Mizuki would sit at a table in the far corner, and Shinji, Touji and Kensuke would sit at the one next to them – close enough to be in earshot of the girls and be able to poke fun at them, but just far enough to be out of punchshot of Asuka and the class rep, who could really do some damage, whether on purpose or not.

"Look at them, that'sh shooo pathethic!" – mouth half-stuffed with a ham and cheese sandwich, the redhead spat out, looking at Rei and the crowd gathering around her. – "I mean OK, she's a new student and all, but holy crap, it's like nobody has seen hair dyed blue before."

"Say it, don't spray it." – Mizuki tried to shield herself from bits of sandwich flying towards her using her bento box. – "Chew your food, woman."

The three girls have known each other since starting at the school, and ate lunch together pretty much every day. Their union was a strange one at best, one of them was something of a school idol, the wet dream of every boy in the school and the object of intense jealousy of every girl; the second – a goody-two-shoes class rep; the third – a cold and distant anime and horror movie fangirl.

"It's not like they won't be back to following _you_ around the very next day, so relax." – Mizuki's long dark hair spread out on the white cafeteria table as she laid the side of her head and closed her purple eyes with a sigh.

" _If only they knew about-_ " – Asuka muttered under her breath but cut herself off, - "I don't enjoy it _that_ much, you know."

Hikari, who had been quietly munching on an anpan, lost in thought, decided to change the subject.

"Are you guys going to enter the talent show?" – the pig-tailed brunette asked, looking at her two friends.

"Pfsh, _of course!_ " – Mizuki laughed sarcastically, lifting herself up off the table. – "Going to go show off my patented invisibility magic trick – not a soul will see me there."

"I know the whole thing sounds kind of childish, but I guess it would be cool to show off something you're good at in front of everyone." – Hikari propped up her chin with her arms and pouted. – "But I can't think of anything interesting that I'm good at."

"Yeah, well, I think it's a bunch of kiddie bull-", Asuka cut herself off again, a sudden realization setting in. – "On second thought, I just might! _That_ ought to separate _me_ from all of the blue-haired newcomers." – She jumped to her feet with a satisfied smirk, finished with her lunch. Inside her head, gears have started to turn, setting in motion yet another Asuka Plan . She quickly waved goodbye to the girls and started to make her way through the crowd of students getting up to get to their next class **–** "I guess I'll get going. See ya in class!"

"That's the spirit!" – Hikari smiled and turned to her other friend. - "You should too, I'm sure you have something amazing to show everyone."

Mizuki seemed to give it a second thought for a split second.

"I _really_ don't wanna."

* * *

"Shinji, catch!"

"Eh?"

 _ **THUD**_

"Ow!"

"Eheh, sorry! Use those _manly_ arms of yours next time, not your face! Thanks for the food!"

"Use those _girly_ arms of yours and hand it over instead of throwing, Asuka!" - The brown-haired boy rubbed his nose with an annoyed look, as his assaulter dashed out of earshot. - "Thank heavens it was only an empty plastic lunchbox."

Kensuke and Toji exchanged a meaningful look and leaned into their comrade.

" _She_ 's particularly lovey-dovey today, wouldn't you say, hmm?" – smirking, Toji began to interrogate his blushing friend. – "Did ya finally ask her out or something?"

"Yeah, he must have, she even started saying "thank you"! I don't even think I've _ever_ heard her say those words! Imagine the school newspaper headlines tomorrow – "Oblivious idiot finally asks his childhood friend out; Bounty placed on school idol's unlikely lover!" – Kensuke continued, gesticulating wildly while poking Shinji in the ribs.

"I did no such thing!" – Shinji always hated when he got teased about his relationship with Asuka. They were close, sure, but he was not sure that he even liked her that way. He always figured he liked the quiet types – Mizuki or even Hikari fit that archetype much better. And he was almost _sure_ that Asuka did not like him that way either. – "The chances of anything like that happening are… slim." – Shinji carefully placed Asuka's lunch box inside his own. Whenever she stopped by his house to wake him up, the redhead almost always raided his fridge for food, and today was no exception.

"Well you will never find out if you don't ask, will ya?" – Toji's smirk turned to a thoughtful frown as the tracksuit-wearing school sports superstar packed up his own lunch box and began to get up. – "You _do_ like her, at least, don't you? I mean, having a girl like _that_ like you, and not doing anything about it? Half of the guys in this room would kill you. Literally."

Shinji wasn't really paying attention. The brown-haired boy's attention was elsewhere, as he vacantly stared at the clear sky visible through the windows. Did he really _like_ her?

* * *

Class was boring as hell, _all_ of it. Shinji was glad to finally be out of the stuffy rooms and hallways.

Mondays meant that he and Asuka had to make their way to NERV headquarters in the center of the city after school. Located in a tall gleaming skyscraper, NERV HQ was the current home and base of operations for one of humanity's oldest organizations. However, its' most recent incarnation had only come to life once the threat of the Angel Cartel surfaced 14 years ago, thanks to generous funding from unnamed benefactors.

Shinji and Asuka have been involved with the organization for as long as they remember. Their parents have always been working for NERV, their teacher has been working for NERV prior to her teaching assignment, and even their parents have been employed there since before either of them were born.

"Come on Shinji, what on earth are you sulking about now?" – Asuka chirped impatiently once she noticed that the boy walking alongside her has slowed down, apparently lost in thought. – "Pick it up, we're late already. I don't want to get chewed out by Misato again, do _you_?"

Looking ahead at the girl standing in the middle of the deserted road, hair ribbon fluttering in the wind, a thought crossed Shinji's mind. Should he ask her?

"It's just… Don't you think that new girl seemed somehow familiar?" – The boy pretended to have been thinking about something completely different. The idea was nonsense; _now_ was definitely neither the time nor the place for romantic confessions.

"Huh? _That's_ what you were thinking about? Well, do you mean _besides_ this morning when she assaulted me? Dunno, maybe. Probably in the last issue of Tokyo Flasher Monthly." – Upon noticing that the joke was not very effective, Asuka started thinking about the new girl with the odd-coloured hair in all seriousness. The question was pretty stupid, but now that Shinji had mentioned it, he sounded right – maybe she _has_ seen that girl somewhere before. Or maybe she just had one of _those_ faces. – "I guess she _does_ look a little bit familiar. I say it's nothing though. Even if we have seen her before, what of it? We see hundreds of people we don't pay attention to everyday. Who knows."

Swiping their access cards through the security slots and flinging a hurried greeting at the elderly security guard behind the safety glass on their left, who was trying his hardest not to doze off in his leather chair, the children made their way towards the main elevator.

"Why can't Misato give us a lift to HQ once in a while? This whole secrecy thing is so annoying." – Asuka sighed as the elevator doors closed behind them.

Shinji just shrugged and pressed down the needed button. The roboric woman's voice rang out th

 _Destination – floor. Minus. Twenty. Three._

In the mornings and the afternoon, the NERV building was filled to the brim with employees, investors and businessmen. By the time it was Shinji and Asuka's evening training, usually only a few select stragglers remained on the ground floor. The spacious, shiny metal elevator did not only go up, it also went down. The skyscraper extended both upwards and downwards, with the floor, the button of which Shinji had pressed like so many times before, located several hundred meters below ground.

Floor -23 was the base of operations for NERV's military wing. This was where both the Japanese boy and the German girl had been honing their combat skills since when they were still little children. But tonight, Misato had a surprise in store for them. Tonight, a third party will be joining their training.

* * *

"What do you mean she will be joining us here too?! _This_ is the famous _first child_?" – Asuka was more shocked than angry. She remembered Misato talking about "help" being transferred to NERV-Tokyo soon, but she never thought that their help will end up in the same school, much less the same class.

"Didn't want to spoil the surprise for ya!" – Misato giggled, remembering the little altercation the two had in the morning.

"Hi!" – Rei gave Asuka a smug wave and smiled.


End file.
